Obligation and Commitment in Family Law

Description

A tension lies at the heart of family law. Expressed in the language of rights and duties, it seeks to impose enforceable obligations on individuals linked to each other by ties that are usually regarded as based on love or blood. Taking a contextual approach that draws on history, sociology and social policy as well as law and legal theory, this book examines the concept of obligation as it has been developed in family law and the difficulties the law has had in translating it from a theoretical and ideological concept into the basis of enforceable actions and duties. Increasingly, the idea of commitment has been offered as the key organising principle for the recognition of family relationships, often as a means of rebutting claims that family ties are becoming attenuated, but the meaning and scope of this concept have not been explored. The book traces how the notion of commitment is understood and how far it has come to be used as a rationale for imposing the core legal obligations which underpin care and caring within families. About the Author Gillian Douglas is Executive Dean and Professor of Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London. Preface Contents Table of Cases Table of Legislation 1. The Ties that Bind? I. Introduction II. Care and Caring III. Legal Obligation IV. Obligation as a Social Norm V. The Concept of Commitment VI. The Rationale for Obligations Upon Family Members VII. Obligation or Commitment 2. Family Change and Individual Commitment I. Family Changes II. A Demographic Picture III. From the Family to the Individual IV. Change and Commitment 3. To Have and To Hold I. Compelling Cohabitation II. The Concept Of Consortium III. The Suit for Restitution of Conjugal Rights IV. The Modern ‘Duty’ of Cohabitation V. Marriage as Personal Commitment 4. A Clean Break I. A Duty to Maintain II. Maintenance During Marriage III. Post-Divorce Maintenance and the Clean Break IV. Triumph of the Clean Break? 5. Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! I. Duty to State, Mother or Child? II. Limiting the Burden on the State III. Protecting the Position of Mothers IV. Supporting the Child V. A Culture of Non-Compliance 6. Parenthood is for Life I. Obligation or Right? II. Paternal Right and Maternal Concession III. A Right of Both Parents IV. A Right of the Child V. A Parental Responsibility VI. Enforcing Contact VII. A Presumption of Continuing Parental Involvement VIII. An Obligation to be ‘Involved’? 7. Who Cares? I. Care-Giving as an Obligation II. Care-Giving as a Claim to a Remedy III. Caring Relationships IV. Recognition of Caring Relationships, or Recognition of Care? 8. The Law of Family Obligations I. Care, Obligation and Commitment II. Altruism, Family Obligation and Non-Justiciability III. The Gendered Legal Approach to the Family Unit IV. Obligations and Commitments in Family Law V. Obligation and Commitment Bibliography Index